In online financial transactions, customers search for and purchase products and services through electronic communications with online merchants over electronic networks, such as the Internet. During the course of these transactions, customers provide payment in various ways including credit cards, electronic fund transfers, and other payment techniques offered by online payment service providers.
When online shopping at a particular merchant website, customers select items to purchase by clicking on a link for a specific item, and the selected items are placed on reserve in some type of virtual shopping cart. When done shopping, the customer proceeds to a checkout page to provide some form of payment for the selected items. At this point, the customer provides information for identification and payment.
Next, the merchant receives the purchase request from the customer and then selects an online payment service provider to process the purchase request initiated by the customer over the network. Typically, the merchant purchases transaction processing software from a particular online payment service provider that formats purchase transactions in a particular format that is only recognizable by the particular online payment service provider. As such, if the merchant wants to change the online payment service provider, the merchant may be required to purchase new processing and formatting software from the new online payment service provider. Generally, purchasing new processing and formatting software can be expensive. Therefore, there currently exists a need to improve the process of changing online service providers in a more efficient and convenient manner.